The present invention relates to adjustable seats and, more specifically, to a swivel apparatus employed in vehicle seats.
Vehicle seats which are adjustable and which swivel are common and in wide use today. Most swivel seats are mounted on an apparatus which utilizes ball bearings. Such systems provide a simple swivel seat but have a number of general drawbacks. First, such swivel systems can be relatively difficult to manufacture with the many small ball bearings which must be fitted into a rotational groove and held in place under specific tolerances. Second, because a swivel seat must be able to withstand significant moment arms about the axis of rotation, swivel systems utilizing ball bearings must be manufactured and assembled with sufficient rigidity to avoid separation due to the moment arm felt on the bearing. If a ball bearing swivel seat assembly is not sufficiently rigidly manufactured, the casings holding the ball bearings in place can separate, dislodging the ball bearings and causing the swivel assembly to fail.
There also exists a need in the heavy truck seating industry to provide a swivel seat which allows a vehicle seat to rotate inwardly (away from the vehicle door) a full 180 degrees to allow the seat occupant to easily access the sleeper compartment of the vehicle. Many vehicle seats in existence today do not allow 180 degree rotation. Due to the tight space limitations of vehicle cabs, and the length requirements of vehicle seats, a difficulty exists in allowing a vehicle seat to rotate 180 degrees. The present invention provides such a swivel apparatus.
Furthermore, many swivel seat apparatuses are designed specifically for either the left-hand or right-hand side of a vehicle. Few are interchangeable from the right to left and vice versa. No such vehicle seat is known to these inventors which allows full 180 degree rotation or which avoids the use of a ball bearing swivel means.